"Only you, Sa Beiro, de Charney, and I will know where the shroud is, and Sa Beiro, at the hour of his death, will pass the secret on to his successor. You will remain in Portugal, Beltran, to guard the relic. If it becomes necessary, I shall endeavor to send you new instructions. During your journey you will pass through the territories of several Templar chapters in Spain. You shall take a document in which I give instructions to those superiors and priors on how to proceed if death comes, as I fear it will, to the Temple and to its knights. Others already ride across the Christian kingdoms with similar documents for our besieged brothers."

"When shall I depart, master?" the Spanish knight asked the man for whom he would gladly give his life again.

'As soon as you are ready."

Geofrroy de Charney could not hide his disappointment when he asked the Grand Master the question that was burning inside him:

"What, sire, is my mission, then?"

"Geoflroy, you shall go to Lirey with the cloth in which your uncle wrapped the holy shroud, and there you shall guard it. I think it best that this cloth remain in France, but in a safe place. For all these years I have wondered about the miracle that occurred on that piece of linen, for miracle it most surely was. Your uncle wept with emotion when he spoke to me of the moment he unfolded the cloth in the presence of the master at Marseilles, and I have come to believe that unto us was delivered the means by which to protect the Holy Shroud of Jesus for all time. Though the first was that in which the body of our Lord was laid, both pieces of cloth are sacred.

'All depends now upon the nobility of the de Charneys, your family, and I know that your brother and your aged father will protect and guard this cloth until the Temple reclaims it.

"Two times Francois de Charney crossed the desert through infidel lands to bring the shroud to the Temple. We face a desperate juncture once more. And once again the Temple requires the service of your valiant Christian family."

The three men remained a few seconds in silence, betraying no emotion yet moved to the core of their beings. That same night, the two Templars would each set out bearing precious cargo on journeys that began on separate roads, toward a destination only God could know For Jacques de Molay was right: God had worked a miracle upon the cloth that had enfolded the Holy Shroud during the long, perilous journey of Francois de Charney so many years ago-a cloth of soft linen, of the same texture and color as that in which Joseph of Arimathea had laid the body of the Christ to rest.

They had ridden for many days, but now, at last, they espied the valley of Bidasoa, in Navarro. Beltran de Santillana, accompanied by four knights and their squires, spurred his steed. They were anxious to enter Spain, to leave France and the agents of King Philippe behind them.

Knowing they might well be followed by assassins, they had hardly stopped to rest. Philippe had eyes everywhere, and it would not be surprising if someone had whispered to his spies that a group of men had left the fortress Villeneuve du Temple.

Jacques de Molay had asked them not to wear the Templar helmet or mail, so that they might journey unnoticed-at least until they were far from Paris. They were not to change their plain vestments until they were a few leagues past the frontier and safely in Spain. Then they would garb themselves again as what they were-knights, Templar knights, for there was no honor greater than belonging to the Temple and fulfilling its sacred mission-saving its most precious treasure.

Beltran de Santillana breathed easier as, along the road, he began to recognize the landscape of his near-forgotten homeland, and he savored the sounds of Castilian as he spoke with laborers and with the brothers in the Templar chapters in the lands they passed through.

After riding for days, they came near the town of Jerez, in Extremadura-Jerez de los Caballeros, it was often called, for it was the site of a Templar chapter house. Beltran announced to the knights and squires accompanying him that they would rest a few days there before beginning the last stage of their journey.

Now that he was in Castile, Beltran felt a yearning for his past, the days when he had not yet known what the future held for him and dreamed only of being a warrior who would free the Holy Sepulchre from the infidels and return it to Christianity.

It was his father who had encouraged him to enter the Order of Knights Templar and become a warrior for God.

It had been hard for him at first, for although he enjoyed wielding his sword and bow, his exuberant nature was not made for chastity. There were hard years of penitence and sacrifice, until he learned to tame his body, fit it to the motions of his soul, and be worthy of taking the oath of a Templar.

He was now fifty, and old age was upon him, but he felt himself young again on this journey, which had brought him from the north through the south of Castile.

In the distance, profiled against the horizon, rose the Temple's imposing castle. A fertile valley ensured the chapter's food, and generous streams and small rivers quenched its thirst. Laborers working in a field saw them approach and waved. Here, the Templars were yet respected and admired. A squire took their horses and showed them the path to the castle entrance.

Beltran recounted the recent developments in France to the somber superior and gave him a scroll bearing the seal of Jacques de Molay.

During the days they rested, Beltran de Santillana took pleasure in the conversation of another Templar born in the mountains of Cantabria, in a town very near his own. They recalled the names of friends they had had in common, servants of the palace in which they had visited, even the names of certain cows that grazed in the fields, indifferent to the shouting and running of the children.

Beltran never spoke of the mission with which he had been charged. And neither the superior of the chapter nor his Cantabrian brother asked questions of the quiet knight. But when they said their farewells, they did so with comforted hearts.

A few scattered whitewashed houses caressed by the sun made up the last village before one crossed the river into Portugal. The owner of the barge that ferried passengers and belongings back and forth across the Guadiana each day charged dearly, but the Templars did not dispute his price.

The ferryman took them to the other side of the river and pointed to the road that led to the fortress of Castro Marim, whose massive walls could be seen even from the Castilian side.

From the battlements of the Templar castle, knights could see to the far horizon and the sea. But the fortress was safe against the incursions of any enemy, sitting as it did in a bend in the Guadiana.

Jose Sa Beiro, master of the chapter house of Castro Marim, was a wise and erudite man who had studied medicine, astronomy, and mathematics, and whose mastery of Arabic had enabled him to read the classics, for the knowledge of Aristotle, Thales of Miletus, Archimedes, and many others, otherwise lost, had been preserved in translations by Arab scholars. He had fought in the Holy Land, known the dry wind of its arid landscape, and still longed for the nights lit by thousands of stars, which in the East looked as though one might clutch them in one's hand.

The superior greeted Beltran and his accompanying knights warmly and bade them rest and wash from themselves the dust of the road. He would not talk with thetn until they had eaten and drunk and he was assured they were settled in the austere cells that had been prepared for them.

Beltran met with Sa Beiro in the master's study, where a large window admitted the breeze from the river.

When the knight finished his story, he reverently unfolded the cloth before the superior. The two men were astounded at the clarity of the image of the Christ figured along its length. There were the marks of the Passion, the suffering the Savior had undergone.